💼 The systemic decay of tech hiring

Plus: every way React components talk, the slowest way to sum an array, and what nobody teaches you about money software.

June 29, 2026

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Hey there.

Welcome to Full Stack Focus. 👋

Here's everything you need to know this week in the world of full-stack development.

58% of buyers now start their research in ChatGPT or Gemini, not Google. Most startups aren't showing up there yet.

The ones that are get cited by the AI tools their buyers, investors, and future hires already use. And they convert at 3×.

Download the free AEO Playbook for Startups from HubSpot and get the exact steps to start showing up. Five minutes to read.

One confusing line in the React docs sent devs down a rabbit hole, and a React core team member showed up to settle it.

Props, context, refs, events — the full map of communication patterns and when each one is actually the right call.

What react-reconciler is really doing under the hood, shown by building a renderer from scratch.

Why tech interviews keep getting worse for everyone — and the quiet feedback loop driving the rot.

Everything nobody teaches you about building software that touches money: ledgers, precision, idempotency, reconciliation.

Two J&J React apps checked your login on the client and never on the server. You can guess what happened next.

The uncomfortable math nobody wants to say out loud: the models keep improving, and almost nobody is paying what they truly cost.

GLM-5.2 outscored Claude where it counts for security work — and the open-weight gap keeps closing.

Have a great week, see you the same time next week!

Full Stack Focus team :)